Utomi and our surging ‘certified illiterates’ By Ayo Olukotun

pat utomi

Last week, Prof. Pat Utomi, the Founder, Centre for Values in Leadership, returned the subject of educational decay to the front burner of national conversation. Utomi, who spoke at an educational conference organised by FlipLearnCon, said that “most educated Nigerians are certificated illiterates.”

It is important to disentangle the various strands of this remark in order to both understand and analyse it. For instance, it should be obvious that Utomi was not referring to illiteracy in the strict construction of that word, but to functional illiteracy. The later refers to the inability of people who are supposedly educated, to carry out employment and other related tasks, beyond a rudimentary level. This can be illustrated by the rising phenomenon in this country of graduates who are unable to write a memo, or letter in clear, comprehensible language. It may also connote the huge knowledge gap that one encounters in casual conversation with Nigerian graduates. This of course merely corroborates the position of several international agencies, who for many years have been raising the alert that many Nigerian graduates are unemployable.

Another dimension of Utomi’s intervention concerns the excessive focus on certificates and diplomas at the expense of skills, acumen, or job related expertise. Argued Utomi: “What we need are skills, and one of those who have the skills don’t necessarily need certificate, even most foreign universities offer skilled courses without certificate”. This speaks to the worship in our employment culture and societal values of paper qualifications, even when they are not backed up by requisite skills and the capacity to perform. Known as Diploma Disease, this culture has resulted in several unfortunate consequences, such as buying or faking of certificates which are not earned by those who parade them. This writer has attended several interview panels in which careful scrutiny revealed that the certificates tendered by prospective employees are fake.

A related problem is the divorce between practical skills, which are often undervalued, and the exhibition of paper qualifications, usually overvalued. An example of this entrenched mindset is the refusal of our universities to accord respect to those who have excelled in say, professional practice, but who are not necessarily academics. To bring the point home, a technocrat, who has served several American presidents, was appointed some years ago, as Professor of Leadership Studies at Harvard University, in deference to rich accumulated experience and insight. In our context however, there are very few instances, if any, of appreciating the potential contribution of such people to knowledge. In the same vein, there is no reason why employers of labour should not grant more recognition to skills, including those acquired on the job than they do to paper qualification. It is interesting to note that in the throes of the current unemployment crisis, self-employment is increasingly on the rise, constituting a reality check to undue emphasis on paper qualifications, earned or unearned. In the opinion of this writer, the more serious aspect of the discourse is the often lamented degeneration in the quality of education on offer in the country. Before elaborating on that bit however, I crave the reader’s indulgence to enter a short take.

Normalcy is fast retuning to several states around the country, which a few months ago were virtually paralysed by protracted defaults on workers’ salaries. It was gratifying to learn on a recent visit to Osogbo, the Osun State capital, that the usual gaiety around government offices is fast returning. Obviously, this is related to the payment recently by the state government of several months of outstanding salaries, as well as the promise made by the governor, Rauf Aregbesola, to bring things to an even keen before the end of the year. Beyond that resolution, which was made possible by funds made available by the Federal Government, I was more concerned with the issue of sustainability. It was interesting to learn from state officials whom I met at a conference, that Osun is in the middle of an economic diversification programme, calculated to reduce its dependence on the centre, and to prevent a relapse of the dry spell of the recent past. According to Dr. Charles Akinola, Director-General of the Office of Economic Development and Partnerships, revenue boosting efforts span the areas of improved tax collection, unleashing tourism potential, raising the skills level of the workforce, and most importantly, rediscovering of the state’s vast agricultural potential.

To underline new frontiers in agricultural development, the government on Wednesday entered into partnership with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Ibadan, in order to kick-start knowledge-based, agricultural transformation agenda. Agricultural investment may take some time to harness and to harvest, but it has the capacity however, to raise living standards and generate income, especially if connected to developments in the global market. In a nutshell, things appear to be looking up for the state, but diligence and follow through capacity will be needed to create fresh buoyancy.

To return to the subject of educational decay, it is important to realise that alongside an underperforming public education sector is             a private education stream which in some cases, offers quality education to privileged Nigerian youths at predictably high cost. Ready examples are elite secondary schools scattered across the country, connected to overseas educational institutions and which offer world class education. The challenge here is to encourage information sharing and cross fertilisation between public education and successful private initiatives. At the heart of any serious attempt to redeem Nigerian education is the need for the return of quality teaching. As one inspector of schools in Wales, England, famously said, “excellent teaching is the most effective way to raise standards in the classroom.” This statement is also supported by the slogan, popularised by the United Nations a decade ago: One quality teacher in every classroom.

The problem however is that quality teachers are not produced overnight, but usually emerge in a context which prioritises human capital development and values excellence or quality by rewarding it appropriately. Under such a system, attention is paid to the recruitment, training and career development of teachers, who it is taken for granted operate in a conducive and qualitative learning environment. This was part of the vision of the unity schools and Federal Government Colleges, which are now regrettably in various stages of dereliction.

Attention to quality teaching will obviously include the revival of the inspectorate division of the ministries of education, whose responsibility it is to enforce standards and control quality. One of my most rewarding experiences, as an apprentice academic at the Ahmadu Bello University, was the way in which senior members of my department, which at the time included expatriate lecturers, mandatorily sat through my lectures and gave me feedback at the end of my classes. This was a form of collective teaching method in which older teachers acted as feedback instructors for younger ones. Of course, younger lecturers also sat in classes taught by senior academics in order to ferret out pedagogic best practices.

It is my view that where the work schedule is not hectic, that is one practical way of ensuring quality teaching and of commencing in earnest the revival of our prostrate educational system.

PUNCH

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